Ch. II.] HORSE-HOES. 31 



occasion any fear of their being trodden on by a larger animal, but the 

 hand-hoe may, in most cases, be also necessary for cutting up the weeds 

 between the plants, which no horse-hoe can reach without injuring the 

 crop. 



Although, upon the same principle of operation, the most common form, 

 however, and perhaps the most effective, is that resembling the Flemish 

 hinot*, though better known as the expaiidirtg horse-hoe, the frame of which 

 is like that of a small plough, without either mould-board or coulter, but 

 having two other shares, placed, one at each side, in a bar screwed to the 

 back part of the beam, but jointed in the centre, so as to adjust the work 

 to the precise breadth of the drills : thus AA are the stilts, 13 the beam, 

 CC the arms to which the side shares are affi.xed, D the centre share, and 

 E the wheel, though it is sometimes used without a wheel, and at others 

 with two. 



^H}^ 



It must be observed, that the bar above-mentioned being moveable, the 

 shares can be removed altogether, or replaced by coulters, and when the 

 object is to earth up the plants, a double wrought iron mould-board, with 

 hinges and connected by a sliding bar, can be added, which converts it 

 into a double-breasted plough of this appearance; but these expanding 



horse-hoes, with mould-hoards, have been found inefficient in their operation 

 upon binding soils when they arrive at more than twelve or fifteen inches 

 wide ; and three small hoes, set to the same width, or even a number of 

 harrow tines, bent considerably forwards, have been found preferable, par- 

 ticularly if the ground be infested with couch t- The cost of the whole 

 machine, which is made entirely of iron, complete in all its parts, is bl. lOs. 



Such are the usual modes of horse-hoeing between the drills ; but it is 

 evident that they must be of sufficient width to allow of the animal by 

 which the implement is drawn, to step without injury to the plants ; and, 

 as corn is generally sown too close to admit of that, the operation is com- 

 monly performed by the hand-hoe, which requires no particular description. 

 As grain, however, when sown upon land which is tolerably dry, and has 

 got high above the ground, will seldom sustain much injury from the 

 moderate tread of cattle, a machine has been invented by Mr. Wilson, of 

 Traprain, in East Lothian, for cleansing the ground between the rows of 

 white corn crops. 



* This instiument is extensively used in tlie tillage of the Netherlands, and has been 

 much improved since its introduction into this countrj-. A full account of it, together 

 with an engraving, may be found in the Appendix to Sir John Sinclair's Code of Agri- 

 culture. 



t Bedford Report, p. 192. 



